"frame times may be negatively affected" is not quite the right message
- Dominant language
- Dart
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Description
We have these checkboxes that add more instrumentation:
https://github.com/flutter/devtools/blob/master/packages/devtools_app/lib/src/performance/performance_screen.dart#L389
We have a message that says that "frame times may be negatively affected" when these are on, which is true. However, I'm not sure that fully represents the issue with these flags. People might see that and think, ok, I'll ignore the _numbers_, but the _relative_ sizes of work loads is still a guide as to what I should work on... which is wrong. It's possible for a widget to take 5ms with these flags off, and be the main problem that causes jank, but for these flags to cause other widgets to take 5ms as well while the problematic widget continues to only take 5ms, and now the source of the jank has been obscured.
The problem is that the frame times can be affected in _non-representative ways_.
Anyway I tried to submit a PR to fix this but I could not come up with wording that was accurate and comprehensible. So I'm filing this bug instead.
cc @InMatrix
Contributor guide
Research direction
Inspect packages/devtools_app/lib/src/performance/performance_screen.dart around the instrumentation checkboxes and the existing "frame times may be negatively affected" message. Refine the wording so users understand that instrumentation can distort frame workloads in non-representative ways, including relative comparisons, then verify the message in the performance screen.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- dart
- Domain
- performance, tooling
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100